Use of thermocapillary migration in a controllable heat valve

Abstract

In accordance with the Marangoni effect, immiscible droplets in a host fluid in which a temperature gradient exists move in the direction of increasing temperature. It is proposed that this thermocapillary migration could be used to construct a ‘‘liquid wick’’ that would return the condensed vapor at the condenser end of a heat pipe back to the evaporator, thus completing the fluid circuit. The droplets would be formed by capillary pressure forcing the condensate through a perforated diaphragm whose temperature would control the droplet flux, and hence the heat flux between the two ends of the heat pipe, thus making it a controllable heat valve.